Perturbaciones asimétricas y Unión Monetaria Europealas regiones españolas

Résumé

This article examines to what extent one of the argurments brandished traditionally against the single currency -the possibiiity that different geographic areasmay undergo asymmetric dislocations- is relevant for the case of the Spanish regions. For this purpose, we start off by offering a surnmary of some recent contributions with regard to this question. We then go on toanalyse productivity data for the 17 Spanish autonomous cornmunities in the period 1965-1995, in order to detect possible asymetries in the behaviour of the regions. Two main procedures are used: calculation of the variance of the cyclic component of the series and analysis of the response to a shock in productivity on the part of the different regions. The results suggest that the regions most vulnerable to possible asymmetriedislocations are those whose economy is less diversified and depends to a greater extent on the agricultura] sector or the servicio industry. In any case, the differences are not of any appreciable size, so that thepossibility of asymmetric dislocations does not seem to be a convincing argument against Spain's belonging to the single currency.